


Tragedy Written In Four Generations

by LadyBrooke



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:09:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23928157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyBrooke/pseuds/LadyBrooke
Summary: Celebrimbor reflects as his own death approaches.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 36
Collections: FandomWeekly (2019-2020) Writing Challenge on Dreamwidth





	Tragedy Written In Four Generations

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Fandom Weekly Challenge 50, Blaze of Glory.

**One:**  
  
Celebrimbor remembers watching his great-grandfather die, crouching underneath a table and only Finwë’s last frantic whisper keeping him safe, the whisper telling him to be quiet and hide, even as Finwë runs a hand over Celebrimbor’s hair as a farewell.  
  
He had stayed there, beneath that table, until his father and uncles had raced in and found their grandfather and then screamed for a still silent Celebrimbor.  
  
Huan had been the one to find him, sniffing his way to the table and crouching down to fit his bulk underneath, licking Celebrimbor’s face until he had laughed and then broken into sobs.  
  
  
**Two:**  
  
His grandfather burned, as bright as the fire he was named for, and as bright as the flames of the balrogs that killed him.  
  
Celebrimbor had still been young, so young that he was supposed to be banned from the tent.  
  
But he had crawled under the tent flap, desperate to see him, desperate to tell himself that everything would be fine.  
  
It was not.  
  
It had never again been fine in Celebrimbor’s life, after his grandfather had burst into flames.  
  
Celebrimbor still remembers the sound of his father’s screams as he had tried to put out the flames with his own hands.  
  
  
**Three:**  
  
He did not see his father die, Celebrimbor thinks, unless he counts Nargothrond as the death of the father he thought he knew.  
  
That he had not watched his father die seems like a failure now, watching his own death approach over the horizon.  
  
  
**Four:**  
  
Celebrimbor decides he will not burn like his grandfather, even though he has set a torch to everything in his workshop and libraries that can be destroyed and cannot be sent from the city with those fleeing.  
  
He will die like Finwë, before the doors and knowing he cannot win, he can only delay as others flee the approaching darkness.  
  
He closes his eyes and waits, hoping Elrond and Maglor, Galadriel and little Celebrian, and Ereinion will not do anything to harm themselves to avenge him.  
  
(And was that really all that was left of their family? They had once been large enough to fill all the bedrooms in Finwë’s palace by themselves, he remembers, thinking of long ago happy nights with his own room next to Idril’s, happily exchanging sweets under the doors.)  
  
Celebrimbor knows his end will not be a blaze of glory.  
  
It will be the smoldering ashes of what had once been the greatest family in Valinor, and he can only hope he will stand as bravely as Finwë had so long ago.  
  
  
**And one, again:**  
  
There is no Huan to comfort him this time, as Celebrimbor screams and screams and is not silent until once more his great-grandfather whispers and strokes his hair within Halls of tapestry, stone, and the dead.  
  
His father is there too, and his grandfather, but Celebrimbor only burrows deeper into his great-grandfather’s arms and tries to pretend this was all a dream woven by Irmo’s spells long ago.


End file.
